


The Heist

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-03-06 21:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13420380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: After fifth year, with James too in love with Lily to pay him much attention and his family situation getting ever worse, Sirius has what he considers to be a brilliant idea for the summer. Severus disagrees. He feels that Sirius’s idea is as dreadful as every other idea Sirius has ever had. He thinks that it will only make his already miserable existence worse. Unfortunately for him, Sirius rarely listens to other people’s opinions on his plans.





	1. Chapter 1

“Snape!” Sirius gasped breathlessly as he burst into the carriage Severus was skulking in alone, enjoying the peace and quiet. He flinched back in surprise, his relief at the fact that Sirius was alone not significantly detracting from his automatic response of fear.

“I’ve had a brilliant idea!” Sirius continued, either entirely oblivious or choosing to ignore the reaction from his audience. Severus was curling himself up into the seat, his wand held low and ready, his book as a psychological defence between the two of them.

“I’m coming to stay with you for the summer!” Sirius said, brimming with enthusiasm.

Severus was certain he had misheard. It was the only sane conclusion, though given that he had never considered Sirius to be particularly sane it was a precarious one. None of the Blacks he had encountered thus far were entirely balanced, at least in his opinion. 

“No,” Severus said, faintly terrified at the prospect. Home was bad enough without unwanted Gryffindors, especially ones that hated him and would undoubtably kick him out of his own bed, leaving him to sleep on the even less appealing floor of his own bedroom. It was, in summary, the absolute worst idea Severus had ever heard, and he had heard some truly dreadful ones in his time. Up until now the worst one had probably been the one Regulus had told him, which had involved a swimming pool filled with spaghetti and a carefully deployed flamingo. Severus had no idea if he’d ever done anything about it, but he rather hoped not. 

“It’s perfect, you see,” Sirius explained, ignoring all other interpretations of his plan. Severus was considerably less convinced that it was perfect. The only way to make it perfect would have involved redefining the meaning of the word perfect to mean something more like catastrophically bad. 

“Because I’ve given it some thought and your dad’s a muggle, right?” Sirius continued cheerfully, “Well, I know that in some ways Evans would be even better as both her parents are muggles, so the full double whammy, but I don’t think James would like it if I stayed with her so you’re the next best thing,”

“What?” was Severus’s only response, partially insulted at being reduced to second best, even for something he didn’t want. He was also somewhat concerned about the fact that he personally thought that whether or not Lily or her parents were amenable to Sirius staying with them for the summer was a far more important consideration than James Potter’s opinion, much like he personally felt that he should have more of a say in whether or not Sirius descended on his house for the next few weeks rather than Sirius making the decision seemingly without any input from anyone else.

Sirius sat down cheerfully on the carriage seat. Severus inched further into the corner, watching him warily. His retreat was hampered slightly by the carriage wall that was sadly entirely solid and prevented him from actually escaping. 

“My parents hate muggles, you know,” Sirius continued, “So giving it some consideration they would hate you too, so to really annoy them I should spend time with you, and if your house has an actual muggle in it then it would be perfect!”

Severus was once again insulted. He didn’t really expect anything else from Sirius, it was true, but being used as a form of teenage rebellion was still insulting. He was tempted by the idea of Sirius and his father locked in a room for the rest of eternity, causing each other suffering as he lived his life free of the both of them, but he was practical enough to realise that it wouldn’t work. If he did take Sirius back to Cokeworth he had no doubt that Sirius would instantly manage to become best buddies with his father, and his summer would be a living hell, without even Lily to brighten his miserable existence.

“No,” Severus repeated again feebly, in the desperate hope that for once Sirius would actually pay attention to the opinion of someone that wasn’t James Potter.

“And,” Sirius said, as if realising that Severus wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the entire plan as he was, “We can work together to get back our friends,”

Severus was almost tempted by this, as he would be willing to sell his soul to pretty much anyone if it would restore his friendship with Lily. He knew however that there was nothing he could do, she had ended it and holding out hope or harassing her would only make her hate him more. He was also fairly confident that any plan that came out of Sirius’s mouth would make matters approximately a million times worse. 

“What about money?” Sirius asked suddenly, and Severus had to admit he was intrigued. Money was one of the things he was always short of. Though honestly, he was lacking in pretty much everything, the only thing he really had for himself was his intellect and talent, and even those were under appreciated because of the wrappings in which they came. If he had money or natural charisma like Potter or Malfoy he might stand a better chance of a bright future. Sirius seemed to realised that he was listening, even if he was still clearly unconvinced by any of what he was saying. The suggestion, however, of spending time with Sirius for financial gain was something that struck him as a little closer to prostitution than ideal. He had never before considered that as a profession before, and felt that it was one he was unlikely to enter into willingly, though it did make him wonder if there was a career trajectory where he would be able to be paid to insult people. It seemed like it would truly play into his talents.

“I’ve got money,” Sirius continued, unhelpfully. Severus slowly drew his book back up, and returned to reading. Sometimes the best thing was to ignore an irritation until it disappeared of its own accord. He remained tense though, and the constant fear of attack seriously inhibited his ability to concentrate on his book.

When the train pulled into King’s Cross Station, Sirius was still in the carriage with Severus. Severus kept glancing at him worriedly as they both shrunk their trunks. The fact that Sirius had changed into some semblance of muggle clothing was really concerning as that suggested that rather than going home with his wizarding family, Sirius was genuinely intending to follow Severus home. What Sirius didn’t know, however, was that Severus had no particular intention of going home to his family either. He doubted his parents would be coming to pick him up and without Lily’s parents to give him a lift to Cokeworth he was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. He couldn’t just sleep rough on the platform until term started again, though it was tempting. He didn’t have anywhere to go, really. He knew the trains would eventually take him to Cokeworth, but he had no muggle money on him and precious little wizarding currency. The silver lining was that Sirius would eventually realise and leave him alone to die in a ditch. As silver linings went, it was fairly morbid.

What Severus was not expecting, however, was to be dragged by Sirius through the crowds, constantly being pulled down behind anything that would hide them from the potential view of the Black family. Sirius had always been a touchy-feely kind of person, with little thought given to whether or not the people he was with objected to being grabbed. Severus had plenty of experience with Sirius’s lack of consideration for personal space, though for once this came without any particular animosity. It was almost pleasant, though he still did not enjoy it in the slightest, more that he appreciated not being actively the target of Sirius’s malice. He still resented being shoved down behind luggage rack as Sirius carefully surveyed the station platform.

“Where’re your parents?” Sirius hissed impatiently, keeping a watchful eye out for his own. His parents didn’t seem too concerned by the fact that he’d seemingly vanished into thin air, though Regulus was looking around frantically. Poor Regulus Severus thought, though with little sympathy. He was not by nature a sympathetic person. 

“Cokeworth,” Severus answered shortly, not appreciating being held behind a pillar as Sirius breathed down his neck. As answers went, it was not particularly helpful, as it required Sirius to have a knowledge of British geography in addition to the background knowledge that Severus had grown up in Cokeworth. As Sirius was entirely ignorant on both counts, he missed the point. 

“Oh,” Sirius said, slightly surprised, “Well, how’re we getting home then?”

Severus shrugged, and once released headed out the station. Sirius followed, still carefully watching for any wizarding folk who might recognise him, occasionally dragging Severus into alleyways or corners when he thought he saw someone familiar. Severus was grateful that it wasn’t raining. He also felt that he deserved some credit for not savaging Sirius for the constant grabbing and excessive physical contact.

Sirius’s jumpiness meant that their progress was extraordinarily slow, and that they both saw far more of the less aesthetically pleasing back alleys of central London than they had either perhaps ever wanted to. While it was summer, it was still England, which meant that the weather was gloomy at best. The sun was starting to set, casting flaming red all over the sky, a beautiful sight that was lost on the two teenage boys. Neither of them had yet reached a stage of their life where they could appreciate the transient beauty of nature.

“Snape…” Sirius said after an impressively lengthy silence, probably the longest amount of time he had ever been silent in his entire life thus far, “Where are we going? Which part of London do you live in? Are we walking there?”

He was clearly not aware that Severus was just wandering aimlessly around the streets, with no particular destination aside from his eventual grave in mind. Severus stared at him incredulously, saying, “I don’t live anywhere near London you dolt, and we aren’t going anywhere,”

Sirius, for the first time, seemed to deflate slightly. This was in no way the kind of answer he was hoping for and it seriously dented all of his plans.

“Oh,” he said, sitting down miserably on the wall separating the yard of a terraced house from the pavement, “Oh,”

Severus sat next to him, as there was little else for him to do. Luckily for both of them, the house they were loitering in front of was in fact unoccupied, as the previous owner had recently committed fraud in a way that allowed them to suddenly become rather rich, yet also meaning they needed to leave the country pronto, and therefore had vacated their grotty London house for a villa in Hawai’i. However, neither of the two knew that, and even if they had it would have had no actual impact on their lives. The only way in which it was vaguely relevant was in that there was no chance of anyone looking out their window and wondering what two slightly shady looking teenage boys were doing sitting on their wall.

“So we’ve both got nothing?” Sirius asked in a small voice, suddenly seeming to lack all of his usual bravado.

“You’ve got a family,” Severus protested, choosing to ignore the fact that he did also technically have parents himself.

“Only in name,” Sirius answered, “And only until they disown me,”

He looked up at Severus as an idea hit him, his face breaking into a brilliant smile like a sun bursting through grey clouds. Severus almost groaned, as those expressions rarely played out well for him.

“I’ve not been disowned yet!” he said with delight. Severus failed to see why this declaration was so exciting. He hadn’t been disowned either and he wasn’t yelling about it in delight. He also didn’t particularly care about Sirius’s family situation, mainly because he didn’t particularly care about Sirius. 

Sirius grasped Severus’s hands in his, clearly overflowing with enthusiasm. Severus looked at their joined hands with an unimpressed expression. He was not convinced that this development was a good one. In fact, he felt that pretty much nothing about the day had been good. He was not friends with Lily, a matter of course that was unfortunately not likely to change. He had spent far more of the day in the company of Sirius than he would have liked, though given that he considered any amount of time in Sirius’s company to be something that should legally be against the Geneva Convention of human rights there was no actual time frame that he would have judged to be tolerable. Sirius continued to look passionately into his eyes, regardless of the fact that Severus wasn’t looking at him.

“Tomorrow we go to Gringotts and withdraw all the money from the Black vault!” he declared in a voice that was slightly louder than it really should be, given that he was suggesting something of dubious legality. Severus stared at him with an incredulous expression on his face.

“…No…” he said, after careful consideration that probably wasn’t actually required. It sounded like the perfect way to make enemies of the entire Black family and possibly be murdered, if they even managed to successfully withdraw all that money from under the noses of the Gringotts goblins.

“It’s brilliant,” Sirius continued, so used to ignoring everything Severus ever said that he barely noticed the other boy’s rejection of his genius. 

Severus just looked at him.

“I still have access to the Black vaults but I don’t know for how much longer,” Sirius explained, “So we grab all the money, split it, convert it to muggle money and have a great time. It’ll be fantastic and my mother will be so annoyed,”

Severus was personally rather concerned about the entire plan. It seemed to mostly be focused on irritating Sirius’s mother, which was a relationship he didn’t really want to become entangled in. He had never met the woman, and he didn’t really feel that helping her disobedient son steal the family fortune would work as a good introduction, especially given the way in which rich purebloods tended to have power within the wizarding world. Somehow he imagined that stealing, even if pseudo legal by some dubious Gryffindor logic that was worryingly Slytherin, was not the way to go about integrating himself into the wizarding community and securing a promising future for himself. He resolved to find a ditch to die in post haste. It was probably the best possible option. At least if he was dead he would ’t have to listen to Sirius, though the competitive and stubborn part of him refused to die before Sirius. Maybe, he thought pensively, maybe he should find a ditch for them to die in together. That way, he would not have to put up with the ongoing misery of living while simultaneously sparing the world of having to put up with Sirius. The one issue was that it seemed faintly Romeo and Juliet, but it was a start. He could fine tune the details later. 

Sirius seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that Severus was contemplating their deaths, caught up in the excitement of his plan.

“So, where should we sleep and plan?” he asked, still holding Severus’s hands. Severus had long since given up on getting them back. He was altogether far to apathetic to really protest much. Most of the fight had gone out of him when his friendship with Lily had burnt to a crisp. Life was less something that he was living, more a case of being temporarily still alive. It was almost as if his existence had ended, but no one had noticed yet so his body just continued working. He had wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if stupid Potter had been later than he had been, as if he’d been killed by Lupin as Sirius had surely intended he wouldn’t have had to experience the pain of losing Lily. Maybe everything that had followed on afterwards was a punishment for having avoided the death he had been destined for, or maybe he had actually died and this was Hell. Either interpretation made perfect sense to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit silly, but then again the whole story is rather silly in many respects.

They spent the night on a park bench. Severus had intended them to have a park bench each, or at the very least for Sirius to leave him alone to his park bench, but Sirius had entirely failed to get the memo. It was not the worst night Severus had ever experienced, but it was in the top ten. He actually spent a certain amount of time thoughtfully ranking his worst nights ever, taking into account various aspects such as sleep quality (nearly nonexistent), company (dire) and hardness of surface (wood was at least not quite as hard as stone).

Sirius seemed, by contrast, to be treating the entire thing like it was a great adventure. For him it undoubtably was. He could just sod off home to the comfort of a nice bed, an option that was entirely impossible for Severus. He kept going over the plan, as he considered it to be, though seeing as it consisted of nothing more than simply turning up at Gringotts, withdrawing money and leaving, Severus personally thought that calling it a plan was rather pushing it. Severus also wondered why it was that Sirius had chosen him as his partner in crime, given that Sirius generally did all of his crazy antics with Potter. Severus did not appreciate being treated as a substitute for someone he didn’t even like. It was insulting as well as annoying.

Severus had managed to scrape together just enough money to buy them each a sausage roll, which turned out to be extremely disappointing. Severus had had low hopes, which were not met. Sirius was excited by the prospect of eating such a common muggle food, which put Severus off even more. Sirius had also entirely failed to thank Severus for the extreme generosity of buying him a sausage roll, probably in part due to not realising that it used up the last few coins of muggle money that Severus had on him. 

Severus wasn’t entirely certain why he had bought Sirius a sausage roll, as really there was no reason. It had certainly shut him up for a while, and it was also clear that Sirius had no muggle money. Presumably the alternative would have been spending the night listening to Sirius whine about how hungry he was, which would have been even worse than his commentary on what it was like to eat a sausage roll. Severus had fantasised about shoving him in the Thames, but luckily for Sirius the river was too much of a distance away for that to actually happen. The fact that Sirius was also bigger and stronger, as proved by all of their physical fights at Hogwarts, was also a fatal flaw in translating the fantasy to reality.

It had, however, meant that Sirius had at least been absurdly grateful and hadn’t complained of hunger too much. Severus had learnt to be grateful for small mercies. There weren’t many of them in his life. 

Part way through the night he had given up on getting Sirius to leave him alone and had moved bench. Sirius had trailed after him like a lost puppy, until Severus had finally settled on a picnic table. It was slightly rotten and distinctly uncomfortable, but it meant that they could each lie on the benches with the table separating them. Sirius seemed to consider this to be the ideal sleepover situation, making Severus wonder if he actually had a brain. How sleeping on a half-rotten wooden picnic table bench was by any stretch of the imagination ideal was beyond him. He would admit that it was not the worst case scenario, but that didn’t make it good. He also was not impressed with the company.

“So when Gringotts opens,” Sirius said for approximately the thousandth time, “We go to the Black vault and withdraw all the money, exchange it for muggle money and hightail out of there!”

Severus groaned faintly into his cloak, which he was using as a pillow. It wasn’t a very good pillow. It wasn’t a very good cloak either, as it was old and starting to get a little threadbare. He was also beginning to feel self conscious about the length, as he had grown since buying it and it was becoming visible.

“Surely,” he said in annoyance, “If you withdraw all the money the vault will have to be closed and your family will be notified?”

Sirius didn’t seem to have thought of that, and he fell silent for a few blessed minutes. Severus thought he might finally have a chance of getting to sleep, but it was short lived.

“When Gringotts opens,” Sirius said again, as Severus wondered what he had done to deserve this, “We go to the Black vault, withdraw almost all the money, exchange it for muggle money and hightail out of there!”

Severus repositioned the cloak so it covered his face in a desperate attempt to either block Sirius’s voice out or smother himself. Either seemed preferable to having to listen to the one line plan being repeated like a broken record. This didn’t stop Sirius, who probably hadn’t noticed in the dark. Even if he had, given that he had refused to leave Severus alone all evening or listen to any of his objections, the chances of him changing his attitude or behaviour were next to nonexistent.

By the time dawn arrived, Severus felt like he’d barely slept a wink. He felt that this was mostly Sirius’s fault, though the park blench also got a portion of the blame. He grudgingly sat up, only to change his mind swiftly and lie back down. Sirius, by contrast, had leapt up with the first rays of sunlight and started pacing around the park like an overexcited dog, muttering about his impatience at a having to wait until nine when Gringotts opened. Severus tried to go back to sleep. The birds were singing in the tree, which should have been pleasant but made him hate birds with a passion he had never before felt. He hoped they all died miserable and painful deaths. Like being all shoved into a large, cement mixer and ground down into nothing. Then roads could be built out of them, making it a supremely practical way of dealing with the dawn chorus. 

Sirius was wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt and generally looking like a trendy youth. Severus was dressed like he’d grown up in abject poverty, mainly because he had. Sirius also managed to look far more bright and cheerful despite the uncomfortable night, which made Severus even more grumpy than he would have been otherwise. Mornings were bad enough without people being cheerful, and people he hated being cheerful was simply rubbing salt into the wound. Almost as if the world had arranged everything to deliberately offend him, the morning joggers and dog walkers started making their way into the park, insipid in their morning enthusiasm. Sirius seemed to be particularly happy at this sign of the world waking up, which further grated on Severus’s admittedly oversensitive nerves.

At nine on the dot they were standing outside of Gringotts. Severus was still unsure why he was there. Sirius was mumbling about genius plans. Had the goblin who opened the door thrown the two of them out the second they crossed the threshold, it would probably have been entirely justified. The goblin didn’t, however, he just gave them a rather disgruntled look as Sirius dragged Severus up to the counter.

“Hi,” Sirius said, with a bright smile that did not convey innocence in the way he hoped, “I’m Sirius Black and I’m here to withdraw some money from the family vault,”

He placed his key on the counter, and the goblin gave it an unimpressed look. The unimpressed look was then transferred in turn to first Sirius, who looked like an overexcited puppy complete with a twig in his hair, and then to Severus, who looked like he would rather be digging his own grave.

The goblin picked up the key, shrugged in a way that suggested he didn’t have any particular opinion on the oddities of humans, and led then towards the carts to take them to the vaults. What followed was a hair raising ride, which Sirius spent clutching Severus’s arm so hard that it bruised and squealing “It worked it worked,” in his ear, and Severus spent wondering what was so amazing about the goblin accepting the actual genuine truth, leaving them standing in the Black family vault.

There before them was far more money than Severus had ever before seen in his life. Sirius was less impressed, as he had grown up in a ludicrously rich family, so he set to work piling money into his withdrawal bag. Up until that point, the most expensive thing Severus had ever seen was Lucius Malfoy. He was aware that Lucius wasn’t himself the expensive item, but he wasn’t very well acquainted with expensive things, so all he knew was that everything Lucius owned was ridiculously expensive. Somehow he had even managed to make his plain black school uniform robes look like they were sewn together with golden thread by the Queen herself. If Lucius had made such a claim, Severus would probably have shrugged and believed it. He didn’t know what rich people did with their time or where they got their clothes, and honestly the royal family came firmly under the same category. For all he knew the Queen could well spend her spare time making expensive, high class robes for people like the Malfoy.

“Come on,” Sirius hissed to him, gesturing at the heaps of gold in a way that probably wasn’t the most innocent manner he could have chosen.

“If we take it all, your family will notice right away,” Severus pointed out, quite sensibly, yet again. He was capable of joined-up thinking, but he was not convinced that Sirius was.

Sirius glanced over at the goblin. The goblin was ignoring them and seemingly having a casual fag in the doorway. He looked thoughtfully at the vast quantities of money.

“I suppose…” he said regretfully, accepting that Severus was right in that respect at least, “Withdrawing everything would involve closing the bank account, and then we’d be exposed,”

“You,” Severus stressed, giving the utterly disinterested goblin a worried look, “You would be exposed, I’m innocent here,”

“Accomplice,” Sirius corrected, to Severus’s displeasure, “Come on then, you’re the Slytherin. You’re supposed to be good with cunning plans and all that. How do we get most of the money out and not get caught. I do still want to go to Hogwarts next year…”

Severus nearly groaned. In many ways, he thought that having Sirius arrested for attempted theft was the most ideal outcome possible, as that way he would be left in peace for the summer and come September there would be one less member of the Marauders to make his life miserable. He didn’t want to be in the Black family vault, surrounded by the Black family treasure. He didn’t want to be dragged into Sirius’s scheme. But he found it difficult to back down from a challenge, and he was already thinking fast about possible options. 

“Maybe there’s a way to rearrange the vault, so it looks like there’s more money left than there really is…” he suggested, not particularly convinced by his own idea. But Sirius, who was far more familiar with the layout than him, was already at work. Sirius was after all quite used to breaking rules and pulling the wool over other people’s eyes. He was just more used to doing it with the other Marauders at Hogwarts, rather than with Severus in Gringotts.

Neither of them were certain how long it took in normal time, but the goblin had smoked six cigarettes by the time they were finished. They each had a large sack of Galleons to exchange for muggle currency. The vault looked less full than it had before, but the remaining coins had been artfully spread over a variety of old clothes they had removed from their shrunken trunks and piled in heaps. Severus reasoned that with the new money they could buy themselves new, better clothes that fit. Sirius found the idea of leaving his family his old, unwashed underwear in exchange for a fortune to be utterly hilarious. Severus wondered how the Marauders had ever managed to pull any of their pranks, given the difficulty Sirius had in not laughing out loud in delight for the entire time they had spent rearranging the vault and the subsequent ride back to the customer service desks.

There they changed a decent chunk of their newly acquired wealth into muggle currency, which was mostly dealt with by Severus as Sirius was still too delighted by what he considered the brilliance of his plan, despite the fact that it was mostly Severus who had ensured that it actually happened successfully. Severus really wished he would be more subtle, or at the very least stop giggling into his ear about how much he was enjoying imagining the look on his mother’s face when she went to scoop up a handful of gold and got his dirty pants. Severus definitely felt like a criminal as he left the bank, but he was also fairly confident that he hadn’t actually committed a crime as such. Sirius was not helping in any way with his conflicted feelings.

Once again, they returned to wandering slightly aimlessly. Sirius had suggested that they make a quick getaway, but the fact that neither of them really had anywhere to head to meant that it was more of a vague meander away from Diagon Alley into muggle London. Severus personally thought that if they really wanted to do something daring and criminal then they should really steal a car for their wild escape, but he knew better than to suggest it to Sirius. Sirius would almost certainly declare loudly that they had to find a Ferrari or something to steal and drag him off in search of a flashy sports car. They would then probably be arrested, and he would end up sharing a cell with Sirius, which he thought would be worse than being free in his company. 

With their newly acquired wealth they bought some faintly disappointing cheese and onion pasties from a supermarket and sat on separate bollards in the carpark to eat them. Sirius was quite excited at this new experience of muggle culture. Severus was torn between spending all of the money he had on him before anyone could take it from him and the more sensible option of saving it all very carefully for the future, whatever that may entail. He didn’t really think that he had much of a future as such. He had, once up on a time, back when he was still a child dreaming of Hogwarts. The reality of Hogwarts had mostly crushed his childish idealism out of him, helped in no small part by the Marauders. Losing Lily as a friend had in many ways been the final nail in the coffin of his optimism. 

He was wondering what to do, as he could now afford to get the train up to Cokeworth. He wasn’t particularly keen on the idea, however. Most things seemed preferably to the idea of spending the summer with his father, like finding a cheap hostel and spending the summer reading whatever was on offer at the British Library. The alternative would be to find some way of going abroad, of leaving the country and seeing something of Europe. He just needed transport of some kind. It was an ironic thought to be thinking while surrounded by cars, but they didn’t belong to him and he was too young to buy one legally. Maybe he could manage to get the train to Dover, he thought idly. 

“You know how Remus’s dad works for the Ministry?” Sirius said from his bollard, interrupting Severus’s brief but pleasant daydream, as if there was any chance that Severus would know a detail like that.

“No,” Severus answered, which Sirius paid little attention to. He knew very little about the home lives of the Marauders. The last time he had made any particular effort to find out anything about Remus he had nearly been eaten, so he made a concerted effort to know as little as was physically possible about all of them. It seemed like the safest option. It unfortunately did not actually remove them from reality, which would have made his life both safer and much easier. 

“Well,” Sirius continued, not in the least bit put out, “He said that apparently they’re intending to change the rules so students aren’t allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts, to be brought in probably next summer,”

“So…” Severus said, “The Ministry’s brilliant solution to the threat of all out war is… to prevent kids from using magic…?”

“…Yeah…” Sirius said, “So this kind of makes it our last chance to do anything we might want to do using magic over the summer. One final hurrah, you know…”

Severus once again wondered why on Earth Sirius was deciding to spend his final summer free to perform magic whenever and wherever he wanted hanging around in a muggle carpark with Severus. Surely logic and reason would suggest that Sirius should be running amok with James, causing chaos and probably thousands of pounds worth of damage. Destruction of public property seemed like it was just one of their hobbies, right behind bullying him which they could do easily enough at Hogwarts. They had spent the last few years proving that. The two of them could even invite the rest of the Marauders and have a field day in the muggle world, as far as Severus cared. He just didn’t want to be involved. Unfortunately, it appeared that Sirius was entirely unfamiliar with the concept of logic, preferring to spend his brain power on being amazed by the fact that he was surrounded by a sea of muggle cars. Severus suspected it to be a recipe for disaster.


	3. Chapter 3

Severus’s musings on how he could get away from the car park and London in general, were interrupted by Sirius, who he also wanted to get away from. He had been starting to get creative, inspired more than he wanted to admit by the entirely disappointing robbery of Gringotts. 

“Can you hotwire a car?” Sirius asked slightly louder than might be considered wise, given that it was broad daylight and there were people around them. Severus stared at him in horror.

“I mean,” Sirius explained, gesturing to Severus as if Severus gave off the general aura of knowing such things. Severus crossed his arms angrily.

“What?” he said, his voice a quiet whisper that Sirius had to strain to hear, “You think because I’m poor or because my dad’s a muggle that I know something like that? Talk about hypocritical and prejudiced…”

For a brief moment, Sirius seemed to reconsider his words, as if acknowledging that maybe it was a less than ideal way of starting a conversation about how much he wanted to go for a drive, but Severus was already walking away from him.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, running after him. He was not in the habit of apologising to Severus, but he hated the idea of being alone. He loved the muggle world but it was true that he knew next to nothing about it. Being abandoned alone in it was not his idea of a fun summer holiday. Even if in his ideal world his companion would be literally anyone else, he still preferred Severus to no one.

“I’m really sorry,” he continued as Severus continued to storm off, very nearly crashing into a middle-aged woman who was clearly just trying to get from her car to the shop in his apparent anger. Sirius was used to Severus being angry with him, it was after all the defining trait of their relationship. But for once he didn’t like the sensation, painfully aware that if Severus did really just walk away and leave him he would be all alone in the world until either he swallowed his pride and went to his friends or family, or until summer was over and he was back on the Hogwarts Express.

Severus stopped in front of a nondescript grey car, and Sirius nearly crashed into his back, not having expected him to stop so suddenly there. Sirius was not used to being ignored, and was not used to wanting Severus to not be angry with him. He was used to it, but now he didn’t like it.

“Sorry…” Sirius repeated again feebly to Severus’s back, uncomfortably suspecting that Severus had stopped solely intending to turn round and argue with him. 

There was a slight click as Severus opened the car door. He did turn, slightly, meeting Sirius’s eyes with a hint of a challenge. He sat down in the driver’s seat, reaching to fiddle with the position of the seat and the mirror, almost as if he was preparing to drive the car.

“Get in,” he said with a slight shrug, as if suggesting that he didn’t particularly care if Sirius obeyed him or not. Sirius, too stunned at the sudden turn of events to react, did as he was told, taking a seat in the passenger seat. Severus inserted the key into the ignition, and turned it.

“I thought you said you didn’t know how to hotwire a car?” Sirius said, baffled. He was confused, as it seemed unlikely that Severus would have a car. He knew that making assumptions was the kind of thing that made Severus angry, but he was fairly confident that Severus was unable to afford a car, and it made no sense that if he did he would regularly park it in a random carpark in London. It also meant that Severus’s implication the night before that he had no way to get back up to Cokeworth would have been a lie, though Sirius was aware that Severus had no actual reason to tell him the truth. 

“No, I said you were prejudiced for making the assumption,” Severus said as he proceeded to stall the engine twice in quick succession, “Besides, it’s far more sensible to steal the car keys…”

“…You cunt,” Sirius muttered, glad that he wasn’t being left alone. He felt a thrill of excitement pass through him, delighted that he would finally get a chance to ride in a muggle car, even if it wasn’t quite as flashy as what he would have chosen. 

Severus shrugged, “I think you’re a cunt too,” he replied before returning his focus to the car. Eventually he managed to start it, after which he proceeded to drive it cautiously out of the car park. He didn’t know for certain where he was going or indeed why he was going anywhere in a stolen car, but he didn’t really care. He just wanted to be able to get away to somewhere a bit further away, even if he also rather wanted to get away from Sirius who was still beside him.

While Severus did technically know the absolute basics of how to drive the car, he wasn’t exactly a great driver, as well as not having an licence. Sirius, who knew even less about cars than Severus, didn’t notice as he was having the time of his life. He scrabbled around in the glove compartment in the hopes that the person they had stolen the car from had some decent tapes, and was delighted to find some. He glanced through the handwritten scrawling indicating the vague track lists, before settling on one. He didn’t bother asking Severus for either his taste in music or whether he minded having anything playing while he was driving, mainly because he didn’t particularly care for the other boy’s opinion on the matter.

Out of the speakers the opening bars of Help by the Beatles blared, causing the car to wobble slightly as Severus rolled his eyes, an action that proved to be unwise when in control of a moving vehicle. 

“The Beatles?” he asked, trying to keep his eyes and mind on the road. He wasn’t entirely successful, but they hadn’t yet died in a mangled mess of twisted metal, so he was starting to feel rather optimistic and confident about the whole endeavour. That didn’t mean there hadn’t been the occasional near miss, as well as the constant fear that they would encounter the police who might realise that he was too young to have a licence as well as the fact that they were driving a stolen car. At least he was obeying the speed limit, though that probably wouldn’t mitigate the illegality of their circumstances.

“A mixture of wonderful muggle music,” Sirius crowed in delight, bopping along enthusiastically in the passenger seat, greatly increasing the general danger of the already highly illegal and unsafe drive. 

After a while of driving, Rebel Rebel by David Bowie, a song that clearly suited both of them in that moment gave way to Jolene by Dolly Parton, another tune in the eclectic mix. Severus started laughing, to Sirius’s confusion, leading to the car wavering in an alarming manner that Sirius didn’t realise wasn’t normal.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Severus sniggered, “You, begging Lily to not take away your darling Potter,”

Sirius stared at him in open mouthed shock, but Severus started singing along, loudly and with a dreadful falsetto that did no justice whatsoever to either the song or Dolly Parton, clearly enjoying himself even if for no other reason other than Sirius’s misfortune.

But Sirius was too caught up in his happiness at heading towards freedom, at being in a moving vehicle with good music playing and his family long forgotten, to be actually angry, even with Severus. He started laughing, joining in singing with an even worse falsetto and delighted in the ridiculous of it. He could see Severus’s point, he had after all dragged him into the whole scheme because James was mooning over a red-haired, green-eyed beautiful woman who he clearly couldn’t compete with.

“Let’s go to France!” he said, suddenly feeling as if there were no limits, that even the sea that surrounded their island that now seemed so small couldn’t keep him bound where he was. The summer would end, but that seemed to be far off in the future.

Severus rolled his eyes, more carefully this time. He didn’t agree verbally, but did glance at the road signs. They were heading in the general direction of Dover and it didn’t sounds like a bad idea to him. He had after all been fantasising about leaving the country and seeing Europe. He hadn’t been intending to bring Sirius along for the ride, but he supposed that it did no harm to continue together. He started following the signs as best he could. Sirius both realised quickly that he was heading to Dover, and started helping with navigating. Severus quickly realised that Sirius was probably the worst navigator alive, and entirely unaware of anything that might be considered either common sense or car safety given the way that he flailed his arms in front of Severus’s face including once hitting him while he attempted to point to a sign that was actually intended for the cars on the other side of the road. 

To Severus, who was not used to driving, it felt like forever until they arrived at the ferry port in Dover. To Sirius, who was not naturally blessed with patience or the ability to sit still for long periods of time, it had also felt like forever. It was a sad realisation, that much as he might enjoy the theory of muggle transport it did also necessitate that it would take a lot longer to get anywhere. He had spent the last section of the drive trying to convince Severus that he should drive faster, as the dial on the dashboard went far higher than Severus was driving. Severus had irritatedly explained the concept of speed limits, the law and the fact that he didn’t particularly want to die. He said all of this despite realising that these were all concepts that Sirius clearly didn’t care much for as evidenced by most of his behaviour up until that point.

Sirius bounded off to buy them tickets to cross the Channel, while Severus rested his head on the steering wheel, glad for a break from both driving and also Sirius. After a wait, they were directed to drive onto the ferry, and Severus was quietly impressed that he managed to do so without causing any damage. He was also faintly worried by the fact that none of the staff members seemed to bat an eyelid at him and Sirius as he didn’t think either of them actually looked old enough to be driving. If anything, he suspected that they looked to be deeply suspicious and probably looked like they had stolen a car and were in the process of making a getaway. However, it all went relatively smoothly and they ended up on the ferry, standing on deck as they watched the white cliffs fade away into the distance.

“To be fair,” Sirius said out of nowhere, which Severus thought was pushing it a bit as in his experience Sirius was never fair, “I don’t know why you’re so upset. Lily was a crap friend,”

It was lucky for them both that Severus was no longer driving, as he likely would have crashed the car. He stared at Sirius, wondering if he had a death wish. He doubted that he would actually be able to shove him over the railing and into the English Channel, but it felt good to fantasise about Sirius’s mop of black hair disappearing beneath the waves. A part of him was angry on Lily’s behalf, as as far as Severus was concerned Lily had been an excellent friend. She had also been his best friend, as well as admittedly his only friend. Even if they were no longer friends it didn’t mean that he felt any malice towards her over choosing to end their friendship, he knew that was his fault. He wished she had been able to find the pity to forgive him, but she hadn’t and that was the end of the matter.

He also felt offended at Sirius’s suggestion that he should be less upset over the entire incident. For starters, losing a friend was a deeply upsetting experience no matter the circumstances. They had been particularly bad circumstances, and Sirius had along with the other Marauders been in many ways to blame for setting them up. It may have been Severus that uttered the fateful word that ruined everything, but had he not been tormented regularly, pushed to isolation by their incessant bullying leaving him with no real support and physically suspended in a deeply humiliating position of utter powerlessness with his underwear exposed he might not have said it. He might not have spent so much time with those like Muliciber and Avery that bandied that kind of terminology or ideology around, had the Marauders not set about ensuring that he would find it impossible to make any friends away from the relative security of his own Common Room, as well as making it harder to easily remain friends with Lily. He hoped savagely that Sirius would over balance and be chewed up by the propellors, staining the sea red with his blood.

“She was,” Sirius insisted, clearly oblivious to Severus’s thoughts or indeed feelings, “I mean if James had seen me getting pantsed then he’d have gone in hexes flying you know, no question. We’ve got each other’s back. All of us Marauders, no question nothing can ever get between us. Friends forever and all that. Lily didn’t seem that bothered. I mean, you are a dick but still you were her friend right?”

Severus gripped the railing to stop him from doing anything he might regret, though he wasn’t really certain that he would regret murdering Sirius. He might regret the legal consequences, but if he could get away with it he would probably be doing the world a favour. The idea that Sirius was suggesting Lily might be a bad friend because of her reaction to the way Severus had been bullied by the Marauders without Sirius even considering that what he himself had done to be in anyway wrong left Severus entirely flummoxed. He didn’t expect an apology, which he doubted he would accept anyway, but the complete lack of comprehension that maybe the Marauders were unpleasant at times and in bullying Severus had been doing something wrong was beyond what he had expected. As far as he was concerned, the Marauders were at fault for bullying him and he was at fault for calling Lily a mudblood. Lily was, in his opinion, entirely blameless in the situation.

“Which is why you’re on a ferry to Calais with me, rather than James,” Severus said, nastily finding the one thing that would wound the most, “Because he’d never drop you the moment he got a girlfriend, abandon you in favour of a pretty girl without a hint of regret. There’s no way you’re now playing second fiddle to Lily…”

The sarcasm practically dripped from every word, so clear that Sirius had no chance of missing it. Sirius flinched, his expression changing to a dark one with a hint of anger. For a brief moment Severus regretted his words, realising that while he would hesitate before terfing Sirius into the sea, as well as being physically weaker meaning that it was unlikely he would succeed even if he tried, he had no guarantee when it came to Sirius attempting to murder him. Sirius had after all nearly fed him to a werewolf, as well as having proved throughout their entire tenure at Hogwarts that he had no problem with physically assaulting Severus. But instead of shoving him overboard, Sirius just sulked, possibly seeing the truth in the words.

The weather was pleasant, and the ferry ride should have been pleasant, only both of them sulked miserably for the rest of the journey. Severus was tired, worn out from a bad night’s sleep, all the driving and being in the presence of Sirius for so long. He might have let Sirius drive, had he offered, but they were both subdued when they got off the ferry. Sirius made no such moved, sitting quietly in the passenger seat, which was probably for the best as Severus was fairly confident that Sirius knew nothing about actually driving. It seemed to him to be something that would guarantee their deaths. With little else to do, he drove in the general direction of Paris.

After a while Sirius put a cassette in to provide some background music. It was ABBA, which really shouldn’t have been greeted with the muted silence that they both gave it, but Severus was secretly grateful as it helped keep him awake enough to focus on the road. Eventually, he gave up though.

“We should get rid of the car,” he said, practically. He was also keen to get out and walk, finally stretching his legs again. More than anything though, he wanted to sleep. The idea of walking away and being finally free of Sirius seemed to be too much effort now, something that could wait for the morning. The fact that they both had vast quantities of money available to them meant that there was a chance for them to sleep in an actual bed, rather than on a French park bench. Severus didn’t imagine they were any nicer than an English park bench.

He parked the car haphazardly on the side of the road, and they simply abandoned it there. The shadows lengthened as evening started to hint that it might be considering creeping in. Severus followed Sirius, letting him lead them vaguely through the streets until they arrived at a hotel that Sirius decided was the one they would stay at. He let Sirius deal with the receptionist, as he spoke no French. In all fairness, neither did Sirius, but Severus at least felt a slight twinge of shame at his lack of ability.

He traipsed tiredly up the stairs after Sirius to the room, not paying any attention to the corridors or the room in general once the door was opened. All he cared about was the bed in front of him. He stepped forward and collapsed face first onto the covers, his booted feet sticking up in the air. 

“I’ll err, pop out for a bit…” Sirius muttered, but Severus ignored him. He was already on the verge of blissful sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Severus awoke to find Sirius’s feet in his face. Sirius had rented them a double bed, mainly because of the language barrier that had existed between him and the receptionist. He had wisely decided that the best thing was for him and Severus to sleep head to feet, and as Severus had fallen asleep long before him that had meant that it was him making the decision and arranging himself beside the other boy. Severus wouldn’t have wanted to wake up to Sirius’s face inches from his own, but he also resented the experience of waking up to a toe literally resting on his nose.

He roughly shoved the offending foot out of the way and sat up. Sirius woke up, disturbed by the sensation of his foot rest both moving and objecting to being used as a foot rest. They looked at each other, uncertainly. The vague truce that sometimes existed seemed to be back, though the grumpiness regarding Lily and James lingered beneath the surface. The sun drifted in lazily through the curtains that Severus had not even noticed the previous day and that Sirius hadn’t thought of drawing. Sirius had never had to close or open curtains in his life, having grown up with a house elf who did that kind of thing for him before going to Hogwarts where once again such issues were dealt with by the many house elves that worked there.

“I bought us tickets!” Sirius said, a statement that was entirely vague and to Severus’s mind also vaguely threatening. He gazed blankly down the bed, hoping that some more information might be forthcoming. Sirius’s entire face seemed ablaze with enthusiasm, which might have been an optical illusion caused by the way the sunlight was hitting his face. Severus already knew that Sirius had the unfortunate habit of being cheerful in the mornings, so he was also quite willing to believe that Sirius was truly that happy mere seconds after having woken up. He wasn’t even certain if Sirius had actually bought tickets in real life, or if Sirius had simply dreamt it and was about to ramble on about some boring dream until Severus figured out how to transfigure him into a croissant to be eaten for breakfast.

“Plane tickets,” Sirius beamed, “To Copenhagen!”

Severus stared at him in complete confusion. He utterly failed to see how this was as brilliant as Sirius seemed to think it was. They had only just successfully managed to enter France, and now they would be leaving. He also didn’t entirely trust Sirius to have bought tickets that involved flying out of Paris, and had no particular desire to go traipsing round France to find whatever airport Sirius had bought tickets from. The previous day they had managed to circumvent the fact that neither of them had passports by surreptitiously using magic to fool border control, but Severus didn’t really want to have to do so again. 

The more illegal things they did, which was thus far adding up to be more than Severus had intended for the summer, the more likely they were to get caught. Being shipped back to Britain and the tender embrace of the Dementors of Azkaban did not particularly appeal to Severus. He had no idea if Sirius felt the same way or if he had even considered that there may be consequences to his actions. Severus was not yet convinced if Sirius had higher brain functions, though he did seem to be capable of breathing and talking simultaneously. In many ways, if Sirius wasn’t it would have made Severus’s life a lot simpler, as Sirius would either be silent or have dropped dead from asphyxiation.

“Why?” he asked weakly. Sirius stared at him as if he was mad, which Severus thought was entirely unfair. It was a completely valid question to ask, and it was obviously Sirius who was the most mad of the two of them. Severus was personally convinced that madness was a Black family trait. All of the Blacks that he had met thus far were varying degrees of bonkers, though he had wisely not published his theory. He suspected that while the evidence and conclusions drawn might be entirely valid it probably wouldn’t go down that well with the wizarding world at large, and he was rather trying to survive. Ideally, he’d even make something of himself, and offending the powerful was not a great strategy for that.

“We get to fly on a plane!” Sirius said, looking far more excited by the prospect than Severus felt. He worried suddenly if they would arrive in Copenhagen only to find that Sirius wanted to go somewhere else as an excuse to use every kind of muggle transport available. So far they had used a car and a ferry, and Severus imagined something would be required to get them to whatever plane Sirius had apparently got them tickets on. He wasn’t entirely certain how good Sirius’s nearly nonexistent French would have been for buying plane tickets, but he wasn’t really expecting much in the way of a sensible answer.

He gave up and simply got up. Now that he was awake, even if he wasn’t entirely happy about being awake, he was paying more attention to the room. It was not quite as nice as the dormitories at Hogwarts, but it was considerably nicer than the house on Spinner’s End. He had resented Sirius for a lot of the journey, but he had rather appreciated having someone who had been able to deal with things when he was tired. He might have imagined Sirius to simply abandon him on the side of the road with the old car, something unwanted to be picked up by the police, but he hadn’t. He felt strangely touched by that act, despite the fact that Sirius had rarely been pleasant to him in the entirety of their time knowing each other. It was a part of the reason why he didn’t object too much to the tickets that Sirius shoved in front of his face.

They were from Paris airport, to his relief, though for the afternoon which added an element of stress that he had not been expecting. For the first time since they’d left Hogwarts, they brushed their teeth, which made Severus feel a lot more human. Sirius tried to talk at the same time as brushing his, some incoherent nonsense about Copenhagen, flying and what might have been a line from an ABBA song. Severus ignored him, whilst also trying to avoid being sprayed by toothpaste. They dressed, in fresh clothes rather than the ones they had slept in, with Sirius once again opting for a band T-shirt, this time the Sex Pistols, and Severus once again being content with clothing that almost fit him. He really needed to stop moving about so he could use the money shoved in his trunk to buy something half-way decent. Sirius had switched some of his British pounds into French francs the night before, but now he knew that they would need to switch money to Danish kroner at some point. Severus also made a mental note to try and not sleep in his clothing the next night. It was starting to become a pattern.

He blamed Sirius, as he was normally the one to blame for most things, and in this case it probably was sort of connected to Sirius. Admittedly Severus would probably have ended up sleeping rough in his clothes clothes in London had he not been with Sirius, but it had been Sirius who had suggested France and the drive had worn Severus out enough that despite the bed he had failed to change into his pyjamas. He conveniently ignored factors like the part where he had agreed to drive them both to France or the part where he had wanted to go to continental Europe for the experience of finally leaving Britain himself. He had always been faintly jealous of other people who had been abroad, as the first time he had even left Cokeworth had been to go to Diagon Alley for a brief trip to buy his wand, and since then until the night before the furthest afield he had been was probably Hogwarts, which seeing as it was his school that everyone he was comparing himself to also went to, it was not in the least bit impressive. Knowing that he had been further from Cokeworth than some of the other people that lived on Spinner’s End did nothing to soothe his ego or sense of longing. 

Despite his reservations, Severus found himself letting Sirius check them out of the hotel, paying attention this time to the French that he could only describe as dubious. Severus couldn’t speak any French himself, but even he could guess that Sirius wasn’t significantly better than him. He suspected that a certain amount of the words Sirius was using were in fact English words said with a probably insulting French accent, but somehow they managed to leave the hotel without much trouble. It did not fill him with confidence as to the validity of the aeroplane tickets, but he was faintly interested in going further afield than just France. It wasn’t so much that he thought France to be boring or that he had no interest in Paris, as he would otherwise be excited to explore a new city. Most places were better than Cokeworth, though. He had fairly low standards in general.

As they navigated through the city by public transport, something that Severus found to be quite stressful and Sirius treated like Christmas come early, Severus wondered why he was making the effort to reach the airport. He wasn’t entirely sure what the point in flying to Copenhagen was, especially as he had had a brief fantasy of seeing the sights of Paris beyond the subway system and one nice but somewhat mediocre hotel. It seemed like a bit of a let down. But at the same time, Severus wasn’t entirely certain if he wanted to be left alone in Paris, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever have another reason to go to Copenhagen. It seemed like a fairly random destination. There was also a faint sense of responsibility, as if should he let Sirius out of his sight for too long the results would be total chaos. In some ways, the fact that Severus had fallen asleep and woken up to discover that in the brief period he had been unconscious Sirius had managed to find a travel agency and buy aeroplane tickets merely proved the point that without any supervision Sirius was a complete loose canon.

A part of him still felt that abandoning Sirius to his crazy plans and whatever consequences might result from them was the best course of action, but he had actually benefited thus far. He had gained money, which wasn’t entirely illegal. He had managed to get as far as France, which had been illegal on a number of different levels. In many ways, it wasn’t as bad as he might have imagined it to be, spending his time with Sirius. As if their mutual sense of being alone and adrift in the world, which was changing too fast for either of them to keep up with, was holding them together at the same time as easing the enmity that had formed the basis of their relationship at Hogwarts. Almost as if away from the castle that was the backdrop of their normal daily life they were slightly different people, able to leave behind some of the act that was necessary to fit in with their opposing Houses. 

He was, however, very much aware how uncomfortably close they had been to the abandoned car they had stolen. He imagined that it would take the police a while to trace them to where they were, especially due to the casual bits of magic they had performed, but it also made him slightly nervous that the Aurors might possibly become involved. Putting a significant distance between the car and them did seem to be a good idea, and as much as he hated to admit it slightly dodgy tickets that Sirius had bought on the spur of the moment the night before did seem like a good way to move to a new place. Besides, he justified to himself, he was sure Copenhagen was just as lovely as Paris and it wasn’t like he spoke French so there was no reason to object heavily to the new destination.

The fact that Sirius found the Paris subway system to be so fascinating annoyed Severus somewhat. He had never been on an underground system before either, but Sirius at least allegedly lived in London, which had the London Underground. To him, it just seemed to demonstrate the way in which wizards could live in the middle of a muggle city without ever seeming to know anything about muggles and the way in which muggles were so completely ignorant of the world that went on right under their noses. Mostly, however, it just served to remind him that he found Sirius to be faintly unbearable. Cokeworth didn’t have anything like the Underground and yet as the one who had grown up in the muggle world he was the one who had to deal with the issue of tickets and navigation, mainly because the alternative would probably have involved him dying of embarrassment at whatever Sirius did.

Once they made it to the airport, which had involved some grabbing of each other’s sleeves that they had both tried to pretend they weren’t doing, they once again had to subtly convince the muggle security staff that they had completely valid passports despite neither of them having passports at all. Mentally Severus added another note in his lengthening list of illegal activities he had been involved in, which were mostly Sirius’s fault. He included the stealing of the car in that category, despite him having been the one to do it, as it had ultimately been Sirius’s idea and he might not have done so had he not been goaded into it. Sirius was entirely unaware that he was being blamed for everything, so it was completely fine in many respects.

Severus had to deal with the practicalities of getting them through the airport, as he found that Sirius kept stopping to gape in delight at the planes. He kept having to tug at the other boy to prevent the general public from falling over him and also to ensure they did in fact manage to make it onto the plane they were supposed to board. It made him rather want to throttle him, as it wasn’t like he had ever flown on a plane before either but he wasn’t gazing out the window making wooshing noises like he was a small child. It felt like eternity and Severus suspected he had aged at least a decade as a result of stress, but eventually they were strapped into their assigned seats waiting for take-off.

“We’re going to fly!” Sirius whispered to him, clasping his hand in a death grip that cut off most of the blood flow to Severus’s poor fingers, with the tone of someone who clearly not been mentally present all the times he had flown on his broomstick. Severus looked sadly at his hand. He had been attached to his fingers, but wasn’t entirely certain if they would ever be returned to him. They might not be the same shape that he remembered them as being should he did ever regain full ownership of them. He chose to ignore the fact that he was not objecting quite as much as he might otherwise have done to Sirius’s decision to clasp his hand tightly.

“Of course we’re going to bloody fly, you moron,” he hissed, “It’s not that exciting, we had flying lessons in first year,”

Luckily there was no one beside him on the other side to potentially overhear him. Sirius was obviously sitting in the window seat, with Severus next to him. Sirius was splitting his attention equally between making a face of pure amazement at Severus, and pressing his nose against the small window to stare out despite the fact that they were still very much on the ground. Severus might have been tempted to sit at the opposite end of the plane had he been given the choice, but he was next to him. A part of him that he didn’t want to acknowledge was grateful for his position, as he was feeling a bit nervous. He had always dreamed of flying entirely unassisted by some kind of magic, and had played about with composing such a spell, but he had always been nervous about being suspended high up in the air at the mercy of something that might malfunction. It meant that he had always been uncomfortable on broomsticks, and he was finding that he was no more secure about the prospect of the large, metal container they were sitting in soaring through the air. He was consciously aware that it was safe enough, but he didn’t understand how it worked and that always irked him. He liked to understand and to be in control of his own fate, probably because he had never truly felt that he had any choice over his life.

As the engine revved up, he returned the squeeze Sirius gave his slightly battered fingers, hoping desperately that Sirius wouldn’t let go. Sirius held on, gasping with delight as the plane took off, watching out the window as everything in front of his eyes became miniature versions of themselves, no bigger than toys, dwindling into the distance as the air pressure changed and they both finally understood why the kindly French stewardess had suggested they suck a boiled sweet each. They had refused, assuming she was patronising them and mistaking them for children. But even the discomfort in their ears could not erase Sirius’s excitement at being in a plane or Severus’s grudging enjoyment of experiencing new things, even if he was somewhat disappointed when Sirius finally did let go of his hand to concentrate on peering out the window at the clouds. Massaging his hand slightly, he sat back, unable to see as well out the small window and wishing he had thought to ensure he had a book to read as they were all still shrunk inside his trunk.


	5. Chapter 5

It was once they had touched down in Copenhagen that Severus finally asked Sirius why he had chosen Copenhagen out of all the available destinations. It wasn’t that he had any objections or that he had any strong interest in Sirius’s answer, it was more that he was vaguely fascinated with the way Sirius seemed to be so entirely detached from reality. He wondered if there was a reason or if Sirius did genuinely operate entirely without reason a lot of the time. They had sneaked past passport control through the almost certainly illegal application of magic and made it out to the train station and a train, letting it take them from the airport into the city centre. Severus had wondered if maybe they should attempt to take the bus, so Sirius could add another type of muggle transport to his list, but the train had been convenient enough and Sirius seemed perfectly content with it. He wanted to know if that effort had a reason behind it, or if it was just Sirius’s flight of fancy that had led them there.

“Because of ABBA!” Sirius answered with a big grin that reminded Severus of the puppy owned by one of the families in the street Lily had lived on. He had hated that puppy, considering it to be incredibly dim and rather useless, though Lily had found it to be cute if unbelievably stupid. He stared at Sirius for a few moments in total silence.

“…ABBA?” he asked eventually, somewhat confused. He was familiar with ABBA the band, but he wasn’t sure what they had to do with their destination.

“Yeah, ABBA,” Sirius said happily, “They’re from Sweden, right? So here we are, in the heart of ABBA-land!”

Severus paused slightly before answering slowly, “You do realise that Copenhagen is in Denmark, right? And that Denmark is a different country from Sweden, right?”

It was clear from Sirius’s reaction that he had not, in fact, realised either of these points. Severus would be the first to admit that geography was not his strongest subject, in part due to the fact that he had never had any hopes of travelling and in part due to the fact that geography was not a part of the Hogwarts curriculum. 

“Damn,” Sirius said after it sunk in, leaning against the window, “Maybe we should have stayed in Paris and robbed the Louvre…”

Severus felt a sudden wave of relief that they were now in Copenhagen and therefore it was unlikely that they would be robbing the Louvre. It seemed like it would be more illegal than what they had done with the Black family vault at Gringotts, and that it would almost certainly end with them being arrested. He still really did not want to be arrested. He had ambitions and plans for his life, even if they mostly consisted of not living in Cokeworth, getting a well-paid job and no longer being bullied by the Marauders. He suspected they weren’t particularly ambitious by the usual Slytherin scale, but at the same time given his own personal circumstances they were probably beyond his means to achieve. He would have liked them to fall into a comfortable silence, to at least give him a break from whatever it was that Sirius had planned next, but he was not so lucky.

“Have you ever given much thought to your ultimate fantasy threesome?” Sirius asked, “Excluding ABBA of course. Of the people we know.”

Severus had never given any thought to this, and had never in fact wanted to consider it. More than that, however, he most definitely did not want to hear Sirius’s thoughts on the matter, as he could only imagine they would be dreadful. Sadly, his slightly pleading reply of, “No…” was ignored.

“See, I’ve always thought that I would go for Remus and James,” Sirius told him, creating an image that Severus instantly tried to block from his mind. He was not entirely successful, and his silence meant that Sirius was able to continue talking. Severus, who mostly treated emotions and feelings as if they were something to be avoided at all costs, with the best option possible pretending that he didn’t experience them, was alarmed at the freedom with which Sirius spoke.

“The thing about James is that he’s just so much fun,” Sirius said, “A real friend. I imagine him to be full of passion, if you know what I mean,” Severus did but he really didn’t want to. He was quietly trying to pretend that James Potter did not exist, purging all knowledge of the boy from his mind. It wasn’t working. 

“And then Remus,” Sirius continued, “He’s quieter you know, but sensual in a way. And I’ve always wondered if maybe a bit of the werewolf would come out in bed.”

Severus groaned, and tried to block out all the rest of the conversation. He was relieved when they finally arrived at the central train station which gave him an excuse to leap up from his seat and walk away, even if Sirius did walk after him. The distraction of being at in a new city served to derail the conversation, much as Severus had hoped that the train would be derailed, killing them both in the ensuing carnage but ensuring that he would never have to hear about the sexual allures of the Marauders.

They found their way out of the red-bricked station, after stopping to buy some sandwiches from a shop to eat as they walked. The first thing Severus noticed about central Copenhagen was the distance lack of Swedish pop stars. This didn’t particularly surprise him. The second thing he noticed about Copenhagen was that it was definitely bigger than Cokeworth. Not as big as the brief glimpses of London or Paris that he had seen, but bigger than he was used to. It came of growing up in a run down industrial town and then spending the majority of the school year in an isolated castle in northern Scotland. He paused, momentarily overwhelmed by the size, unsure where to go or what to do. Sirius, who had grown up in London and as far as Severus could tell clearly had no sense of self-preservation, had no such reservations.

“We’d better find a hotel to stay in,” Sirius said cheerfully, “And then we should do some sightseeing or something. Or eat. Maybe both.”

He headed off aimlessly through the streets, as if he had a clue as to where to go. Severus hesitated, then hurried after him. He would never admit it, but he didn’t want to be alone. Even if he was still firmly clinging to his dislike of Sirius, he would rather they stuck together. He also suspected that if he let Sirius out of his sight for too long, there was a chance of some unmitigated disaster occurring, and that Severus would somehow end up being blamed or implicated even if he was entirely innocent, so at least if he kept Sirius close by then he stood a chance of intervening before anything too bad happened. Or, maybe dying in the resulting catastrophe which would at least mean he wouldn’t have to deal with the aftermath. Either was good with him.

After some erratic wandering, Sirius found a hotel that he decided he liked. They walked into a foyer that seemed to be decorated in a style that Severus would classify as rich. The floors were clean, which would realistically have been enough to impress him. He wasn’t actually very knowledgable about home interiors, having grown up in a house on Spinner’s End that was only generously considered fit for human habitation, and once human rights and standards improved would probably be relegated to not fit for human habitation. His only other experience of interiors was Hogwarts, which was nicer than any of the houses on Spinner’s End, as well as being bigger and more magical. Hogwarts was, however, an old castle. It was therefore different to the environments most people actually lived in. In actual fact, the floor was an impressively shiny dark marble, with the walls matching. Sirius walked confidently up to the reception desk, while Severus tried his best not to breathe too much incase he damaged anything and was charged an extortionate amount of money as a consequence. 

The reception desk was staffed by a young woman who was older than them, but not by a huge amount. She had long blonde hair pulled back into a high pony tail and looked immaculate in her smart uniform that Severus suspected cost more than his second hand school robes, which were the most expensive clothes he owned. He resolved once again to use some of his newly acquired money to buy some half-way decent clothes. That way he might at least look less out of place if Sirius dragged him posh looking places, even if he would still feel out of place. The woman smiled at them welcomingly, regardless of the fact that Sirius looked like an over-eager puppy with a passion for rock music and Severus looked like he had been regurgitated by a particularly bad-tempered cat. 

“Hej, kan jeg hjælpe dig?” she asked cheerfully. Sirius turned to look expectantly at Severus. Severus gave him a look that managed to be both blank and incredulous at the same time. Severus gave the woman something that was supposed to resemble a smile but mostly managed to look like a terrified grimace. He had never been particularly good at smiling, and when he was in a situation where he was uncomfortable and close to panic his abilities vanished.

“Can I help you?” she repeated, in softly accented English. Severus hesitated, as he wasn’t entirely sure what to say. Probably telling her that Sirius was mad and needed to be restrained for his own safety was not the kind of help she was offering.

“Yes,” Sirius said, delighted, “We want a room!”

“Alright,” she said, glancing at Severus. Severus shrugged, to communicate the idea that he was very much aware that Sirius was bonkers but that it was probably best to just humour him.

“Do you have a penthouse suite?” Sirius asked, “We want the penthouse suite.”

Severus was not aware that they wanted a penthouse suite. He wasn’t entirely sure what one of those even was. He would have been perfectly happy with a bed in a hostel. It seemed too extravagant, too over-the-top. Sirius, he had realised, rarely did things by halves. The woman gave them a room, which was expensive but it didn’t seem to bother Sirius. It occurred to Severus that while it might be expensive, it wasn’t an amount that would make a significant dent into their newly acquired wealth of dubious origins. A minor bit of magic was required to keep the transaction smooth, mainly because they were still a bit young for renting expensive hotel rooms, and also illegally in the country.

Sirius nearly had an aneurysm when they took the lift up to the top floor, where their room was. It was once they arrived that Severus considered that maybe they should have booked separate rooms, but he shrugged it off. They could do that another day. Besides, he had no idea what kind of room they had actually booked. It was, in all honesty, the first time Severus had ever ridden in a lift too, but he managed to restrain his excitement. It was, after all, not nearly as impressive as magic. It was odd, to him, the way in which Sirius was so fascinated with the muggle world. Severus had always thought it to be unspeakably dull and that he was unbelievably lucky that he had been able to leave it for the wizarding one. He was starting to see that, once he left his father and Cokeworth behind, there were some parts that were alright.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about simultaneously being Sirius’s guide to the muggle world while Sirius was himself, through his enthusiasm and excitement, opening Severus’s eyes to the world he had thought he knew. He’d hated it, but he hadn’t really hated the places he’d been with Sirius. He hadn’t exactly enjoyed sleeping on a park bench in London, and he had not liked waking up to Sirius’s feet in his face in the previous hotel, but he had seen new places. They weren’t quite Hogwarts, but Hogwarts was no longer exciting. It was in a way his normal life, even though it was still very special to him. Cokeworth he probably would never like, being full of bad memories and the lingering presence of Lily who now served as painful reminder of the fact that they were no longer friends. Paris, or the brief bits he had seen of it, had been nice, and Copenhagen seemed to be pleasant. Somewhere to explore. As if there was a wider world out there than the one he had always lived in.

The room they were to stay in was large and expansive. Severus thought that he could get used to luxury, if he was given the chance. He noticed that despite the sprawling rooms, there was only one bed. He huffed in annoyance, but it didn’t last for long. It was probably the biggest bed he had ever seen in his entire life. In another room, it would have been too big, dominating the entire place, but here it was in perfect proportion. The sheets were a rich blue, which was probably just as well. Severus had five years of Hogwarts to make him dislike red, and Sirius had a lifetime of resenting green, but neither of them had much against the colour blue. 

He joined Sirius in exploring the rest of the rooms, as there seemed to be multiple sprawling areas to the suite. In addition to the bedroom, there was a form of a living room with a sofa that Severus imagined would be more comfortable to sleep on than his bed at home in Spinner’s End. If it had been anyone else he was sharing the room with, he would have been perfectly happy to do so, but he knew that he wouldn’t allow himself to be relegated to the sofa while Sirius took the bed. If Sirius wanted to sleep on the sofa because it was more of an adventure then Severus wouldn’t object in the slightest, but he was not surrendering his right to a place in the bed. Even if that did mean that they would both have to share, and there would probably be kicking.

There was a large television, which Sirius gravitated towards. Delightedly, he started pressing all the buttons on the remote control. After some pressing, he managed to press the on button, and the TV switched on. It was, unsurprisingly, in Danish. Neither of them spoke Danish, but that didn’t seem to detract much from Sirius’s joy. Severus sat down beside him for a moment, quite glad to no longer be travelling. Even though it had mostly involved them sitting down on varying forms of public transport, it had been stressful. It had been tiring to constantly have to ensure that they were prepared to subtly bewitch the staff at immigration and passport control, and it had all been very new. In a way, it was the same as how he had felt the first time he sat beside Lucius at the Slytherin table, after his sorting in his very first year at Hogwarts. He had been tired then too, exhausted by the long day of being transported from King’s Cross to Hogwarts, excitement and the constant worry of what was to come wearing him out despite him having done very little. It was the same, the thrill of going new places and seeing new things draining him but in a way that felt good. He hadn’t felt that same level of happy tiredness, as if the day had been well-spent, in a while. He was almost looking forward to exploring the city, to seeing the sights. He didn’t even mind if they were only there for a short time, or if they stayed the whole summer. It was something to look forward to. As if there was an exciting future of good things ahead of him where he had always believed that his life was destined to continue as miserably as it always had.

After watching the incomprehensible TV for a while, Sirius got up to return to exploring, leaving the TV chattering away to itself. Severus did too, going outside to the balcony that they had access to, marvelling at the way in which the city spread out in front of him. He was lost in reverie when Sirius interrupted him, which was a common feature in their relationship.

“Holy fuck, have you seen the bathroom?” Sirius exclaimed, after opening one of the doors. Severus hadn’t, but when he went to join Sirius in the doorway he found himself agreeing with the assessment. He wasn’t used to agreeing with Sirius. It felt strange. But the bathroom was impressive. It was expansive, with a large bath sunk deep into the floor taking up most of the room. There looked to be a large number of knobs that they would discover controlled various jets, and lights that when pressed haphazardly by Sirius created an atmosphere that was potentially more romantic than either of them thought was necessary. There were also far more candles and mirrors than either of them thought a bathroom should really have, but it did all add to the atmosphere. 

They both enlarged their trunks, and started rummaging through them for their nightshirts. It seemed almost sacrilege to brush their teeth in that bathroom, but it also seemed like they probably were not the kinds of people who should be sleeping in the very nice bed. And yet they would do so anyway, tired but looking forward to the next day. So tired that they didn’t even bother to argue, slipping into the bed and falling asleep with little problem.


End file.
